An Afternoon Walk Through Downtown Detroit

[Allan]

A Walk through Downtown, Part II of IV

An old building in Greektown

The Millender Center Apartments

Cadillac Tower

More Greektown

The Harmonie Park neighborhood, looking towards Compuware & the Central Business District. The new Hilton Garden Inn can be see at the far right. Unfortunately I didn't get a better photo of the building, even though I was right in front of it.

The Detroit Atheletic Club and the Gem Theater

Do I even need to say what this is a photo of? Hopefully everyone recognizes it by now.

Unfortunately there are many surface lots in this part of downtown.

The next eight photos were supposed to be of Ford Field, but apparently they didn't upload properly.

The Elwood Bar & Grill. On this day, there are many people in the area for the Tigers game. Unfortunately, the Tigers lost 11-0.

Ford Field

Comerica Park even has a ferris wheel for the people who don't want to go watch the game.

The largest complaint I have with Comerica Park is these two surface lots out front. The Wolverine Hotel & YMCA were demolished to provide these two lots for those people too lazy to walk from their parking places elsewhere downtown. If they were going to provide parking by the stadium, fine, but they could've at least built the stadium right along Woodward Avenue, not set back from it.

All the fans waiting to get into the park.

Several tigers are mounted along the outside of the stadium.

Looking towards the Renaissance Center, the crowds, and those annoying surface lots out front.

Buildings along Grand Circus Park

Say "farewell" to the Statler. The future of the site appears to be a parking lot, unless the plans for renovating the building into apartments go through.

Broderick Tower is also known as the "Whales Building". If only the plans to turn the building into apartments would actually happen. The owner has said he wants to turn the building into apartments, but he has been saying that since 1998 and no progess has been made.

An Old Building on Broadway Street. I can't remember the name of it though.

Another view of the Broderick Tower. The steel framework near the bottom of the tower is for the Post Bar on Broadway. There have been financial difficulties with the project, so it has been under construction since 2000. The owners plan to have it completed by the end of this year, but something tells me that is not too likely.

The Milner Hotel

The Milner Hotel is on the left. The new Hitlon Garden Inn can be seen at the end of the street.

Detroit Athletic Club

The Madison Lenox Hotel. One of most run down buildings downtown, the owner (who just happens to be Mike Ilitch) wants to demolish it for a "nicely landscaped parking lot". The Detroit Historic Commission has denied the approval of demolition twice already.

The Madison Lenox would be a great loss for the neighborhood. Even if they could keep the Lenox & demolish the Madison I'd be happy.

Part One

Part Three

Part Four

[bobliocatt]

I agree with your take on the baseball park, it would have been much better to have it facing Woodward.

[Chow]

The building on Broadway is the Wurlitzer Building, once housing a music company of the same name. It is in horrible shape.

[Allan]

The building on Broadway is the Wurlitzer Building, once housing a music company of the same name. It is in horrible shape.

Oh, ok. Wasn't there plans to turn the Wurlitzer Building into lofts at one time? I guess the plans never materialized....

[QC704]

Those are great pics, it makes me really want to get back to downtown motown.

We are expecting Pistons victory parade photos ya know .

[wolfdawg54]

I like the tour. Hopefully they can save the whole hotel, not just part of it.

[Allan]

I like the tour. Hopefully they can save the whole hotel, not just part of it.

Which hotel? Madison-Lenox, Book Cadillac, Statler, or Pick-Fort Shelby? Yeah, I know, we've got a lot of abandoned hotels.

About the Book-Cadillac...This is what today's paper has to say:

Consider the Book-Cadillac. Closed 20 years, the hotel is now the subject of intense negotiations between the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., the development arm of the city, and the Ferchill Group of Cleveland, which hopes to renovate the property as an upscale Westin hotel. Gary Brown, the DEGC's project manager overseeing the interior clean-up work now taking place, said trying to reopen the Book-Cadillac during Super Bowl week would deprive the hotel of its own spotlight.

"I think when the Book-Cadillac opens they'll want their own week of black-tie parties and everybody remembering what the Book-Cadillac was," Brown said. The likelihood of not finishing everything on time also means Detroit's Super Bowl planners most likely will fill in some of the blank spots with a mix of outdoor music stages, heated hospitality tents and similar venues. And plans are still being developed to apply a splash of colorful advertising on the sides of several downtown towers, either with vinyl advertising wraps or the jumbo television screens that define New York's Times Square.

The good news is that I've heard that they are doing stonework repair on the Book-Cadillac. They wouldn't be doing that if they were going to tear it down.

[SNWEB]

The Statler can be saved! http://www.savethestatler.com

The Post bar has had no construction because the Post does not have enough cash, and the structure was build a couple of inches off, no one will touch it.

[Allan]

The Statler better be saved! It's not going to come down without a fight!

[ColinSuperCool]

The Millender Center Apartments

I think the wat the parking Garage is built into the Millender Center is a good idea better than tearing down a perfectly fine historic structure to make way for a whole new block long parking garage.

[baldy]

Yeah, I like it when buildings incorporate the parking garage into the construction. It makes the building taller (which is always good ) and it doesn't leave the eye sores that having a bunch of parking garages will give.

Probably the best parking garage in downtown has the one next to comerica tower.

The best integration of parking into the building has to be 150 west jefferson. Most people don't know the bottom of the building is parking! What looks like the entrance on the front, is really just a small lobby with an elevator which takes you to the main lobby on the 5th floor at people mover level. The actual occupied floors are one floor above that.